Review of Arcane Season 1

If you’re new here and found this blog through the mysterious powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I’m a dedicated reader and movie watcher who thought to turn this website into a little digital archive of sorts.

I was watching and reading so much that I wanted to keep track of it all, so I began blogging as a way to keep these books as memories somewhat forever.

That said, I recently fell into a period of unemployment, and this blog was a solace for me. Not only was it a way to make a little bit of money when there was nothing else coming my way really, but I found, after getting my finances in order, that I enjoyed sitting down to write blog posts when I had nothing else to do in my day.

I worked as a film and television critic at a professional outlet for a while, and that was when I realized I should start my own blog to document my literary and film endeavors. Throughout the years I’ve been writing little blurbs and reviews for myself on shows, movies, and books, but never put them anywhere.

Sadly, about 85% of these reviews are lost to history, but the ones I’ve found I’ve been slowly updating the blog with it. I recently put out a review of Arcane season 2, looked into my archive, and then realized I never reviewed season one to begin with on the front end. But I had a review on the backend!

So it was the perfect excuse to revisit season one and see if there were any little details I missed.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

The story of Vi and Jinx, as well as the underworld in which they learned how to survive in.

For those who are fans of League of Legends, there’s a lot to see in this series that expands on the initial lore. Our focus in the series is on Vi and Powder, who are two sisters who lost their parents after a rebellious battle against Piltover, the world above that’s full of wealth. Zander, the leader of the rebels, puts them under his wing, and Vi and Powder grow up learning how to fight and also be rebellious.

They return to Zaun, the underworld, and the years pass by. The series continues on when science experiments happening in the underground causes Deckard, now mutated, to go off and kill quite a few people. As more of the group is killed off by the chaos happening, Vander is sacrifices himself to allow Vi to keep living, and Vi, upset, calls Powder a Jinx.

That’s the catalyst for the rest of the series, as the rupture between Powder, now known as Jinx, and Vi is a major point of conflict. Jinx joins Silco and becomes one of his henchwomen, and as the years pass, she uses explosives to help terrorize those around and disturb the tentative peace people are working towards.

When more years pass, Jayce, who was working on Hextech and the technology with shimmer needed to power it, has become acknowledged for his work. We also meet other characters, such as Heimerdinger, and Caitlyn amkes her appearance as someone who works as an enforcer with a strong sense of justice.

Throughout the course of the series, the plot thickens around the shimmer, Silco’s plans, and how Jinx and Vi are dancing around each other. At one point Jinx even sees someone who looks like Vi and has a mental breakdown on the spot, as she’s pretty traumatized over what happened.

Coming back to this after watching season 2, season 1 stands out more to me because of the emphasis on the characters and their relationships with each other, especially Jinx and Vi. Their relationship is the core of the season, and how they feel betrayed by each other, and how this situation evolves, is one of the most compelling parts of the show.

The animation style is also gorgeous. I will admit, when I heard League of Legends was getting adapted for Netflix, I thought that this was going to be a flop. I was pleasantly surprised to see how dynamic and fluid the style was, as well as how captivating the story was.

Overall Thoughts

If it wasn’t slightly obvious from the previous few paragraphs, I enjoyed this show a lot. I wasn’t seriously expecting it to be as deep as it was, and I was happy to see a game I had played as a teenager was done justice for the small screen. I think this show will be considered an animated classic one day.

If you haven’t seen League, I wouldn’t be intimidated by the fact this is based on a video game series. I think the characters are independent of the game enough, with the lore being somewhat accurate to what we’re given in the game. Accessibility is important—it captures both old and new fans alike.

Go watch this if you haven’t already! I think it’s worth watching at least once, even if this kind of genre isn’t your usual cup of tea. It’s not usually mine, but I loved this quite a bit.

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